Forget About Using Your Phone If You're Going To Have Dinner At Tom Izzo's House

Tom Izzo doesn't want to sound like the grumpy old man in the room. He just feels like he has to be that guy.

At Big Ten basketball media day in New York City last week, the 62-year-old Michigan State head coach, who has been at the helm in East Lansing since 1995, went into a pretty descriptive rant about why cell phones and other electronics are possibly hurting recruits and collegiate players.

"You're adding seven hours a day of looking at a screen that never existed," Izzo says.

"There's nothing better than to come to my house for a recruiting meal or something. My wife's got a big basket when you walk in the door. They all have to put their phone's there. And in the last year and a half, the conversations downstairs have quadzippled. Everybody's talking to everybody. Everybody's having a good time. If you don't [do what I do], everyone's like this [texting motion] ... When are we gonna figure out, it's not so good for the kids?"

"My own assistants are telling me that if I don't start tweeting, we're going to lose recruits, but the last two years we've gotten two of the best recruiting classes that we've had."

Michigan State is the preseason No. 2 in the USA Today Coaches behind only Duke. The Spartans open against North Florida on Nov. 10 before playing Duke on Nov. 14.